Bug 2571751 (CVE-2026-100290) - CVE-2026-100290 glibc: glibc: Denial of Service via memory allocation failure during regular expression processing
Summary: CVE-2026-100290 glibc: glibc: Denial of Service via memory allocation failure...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-100290
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-11-11 16:11 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-11-11 16:18 UTC (History)
22 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-11-11 16:11:10 UTC
The regcomp and regexec functions in the GNU C Library version 2.3 to version 2.44 may read freed memory and free the same heap block twice when a memory allocation fails while a regular expression is compiled or matched.  The re_dfa_add_node (the NFA node table) and build_range_exp (bracket ranges) grow several arrays with consecutive realloc calls and store the new pointers only after all of them succeed.  When a later call fails, the pattern buffer keeps pointers to blocks that were already freed, and the error cleanup frees them again.  In regexec, the back-reference cache (match_ctx_add_entry) frees its array when a realloc fails but keeps the pointer, which is freed again on the error path.

An attacker does not need to supply a crafted regular expression: patterns large enough to grow these arrays are common.  The failure has to hit a specific allocation, though, so the issue can only be reached when the system is already under memory pressure.  An attacker who supplies the pattern or the subject string has little control over which allocation fails, so the expected impact is a crash of the process.  This issue affects all architectures and ABIs supported by the GNU C Library.


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.